For the past few years, I haven’t set any resolutions. They felt too rigid, and I’d be likely to follow for a week or two, before falling off the wagon. Setting intentions felt like a much more gentle way of setting the tone for the year ahead, without any strict goals or deadlines to adhere to. It’s quickly become a favourite of mine, and I often set intentions for my weeks, and sometimes individual months, too.
2019 word of the year
Last year, my word of the year was ‘discovery’. I chose it to embody the inquisitive spirit of new beginnings, as I was beginning my coaching journey. It was a time of exploring new things and whilst the worst certainly delivered, what I didn’t expect was the other type of discoveries I’d make that year.
2019 was full of personal growth, and it began with going on a retreat at the beginning of the year, and realising I could no longer deny that I needed to work through some childhood stuff. I spent the rest of the year diving deep into self development and healing, which, whilst it felt hard at times, was so crucial to my progress, not only personally, but also as a business owner, too.
What I’ve learnt over these past few years, is that mindset is an enormous part of running a business. We can learn all the technical skills, but if we don’t dedicate some time to developing our mindset and resilience, we will quickly find that we might hit a wall. The self doubt and comparison voices might begin appearing, and if you’re anything like me, it’ll take some work to shift it.
My word for 2020
It took me a little while to come up with my word of 2020. I went back and forth on a few words, and for a while I thought I’d settle on ‘balance’. It was a a nice umbrella word for everything I wanted this year to represent. After a bit of brainstorming, I realised that the word ‘centred’ embodied what I wanted this year to be more about.
I spent a lot of 2019 looking outward at what everyone else was doing, expecting others to have the answers to my questions. As I worked with a mentor in spring of 2019, I struggled to find my true self. A lot of the advice didn’t feel well suited to my business, but it made me question how I did things. I was being told that the conventional marketing methods were the only way forward, but when they didn’t feel right, it made me question whether I was wrong to want to do things differently.
My confidence was low, and as a result, I held back a lot. I hid in fear of sharing things people wouldn’t understand or relate to. That’s why, for my word of 2020, I wanted to focus on tuning back in, and learning to trust my own voice again. I may have lost it for a little while, but it’s time to get centred again. It’s time to look inward and come home to myself again.
Let this be a gentle invitation to spend some time tuning in with yourself too. In a world where we all know comparison a little too well, it’s worth working on getting back to centre. My favourite ways of tuning back in are through journalling, meditation and some gentle yoga, too. I might write another blog post all about how you can do that, soon.
Finding your own word of the year
So now that I’ve told you what my word of the year is, it might be useful to explore how you can set your own word, too. If you’re new to this whole ‘word of the year’ hype, I’d recommend taking some time to evaluate how 2019 felt, and what you’d like to bring more of in 2020.
After a year of feeling quite lost, I wanted 2020 to feel grounding and balanced, and ‘centred’ felt like the perfect word. Begin by brainstorming some possible words, and see which words you’re most drawn to. You might also want to use a thesaurus to do a bit of brainstorming, as sometimes we might know the feeling we want to bring in more of, but we might be unsure as to what single word could encompass that feeling.
Take a few days and don’t rush it. There’s no deadline and it’s better if the word comes to you naturally, rather than trying to force it. If you feel like setting the word for the full year feels a little scary, why not experimenting with setting a word for a month, or the first quarter? You can always check in after some time to see if it still resonates with you.
Above all, it’s just a gentle guide for the year, and nothing is set in stone, so don’t be afraid to get a little creative. Enjoy!
If you’d like a little help in setting intentions and goals for the year, this is exactly what we’ll be doing in my group coaching programme, Fearless, launching January 20th. If you’d like to find out more, head on over here.
Anna x
